HB-25 Motor Controller with standard R/C receiver

jolau

I am considering to buy the HB-25 Motor Controller. I would like to control the motor controller by an R/C controller. But I don't need any encoding etc. Is it possible to just connect the motor controller to a R/C receiver and control it?

Thanks in advance for your help,
jolau

LoopyByteloose

Well, you can read the documentation to assure yourself, but it certainly seems able to use an R/C receiver's PWM outputs directly. They are nice units.. capable of running some powerful motors... up to 1/2HP (about 310 watts)

http://www.parallax.com/sites/default/files/downloads/HB-25-Motor-Controller-Guide-v1.3.pdf

jolau

Yeah, I already read the documentation and I interpreted it that it should work with a R/C receiver. But did someone actually try it out? Or can someone confirm my interpretation?

LoopyByteloose

Nope... I don't own an HB-25 and I don't work for Parallax. Talk to their Customer Service people after the holiday weekend is over.

garyg

Hi
I use two older HB-25 motor controllers.
I'm driving two automotive windshield wiper motors on a robotic platform I'm building.
The tricky bit about the HB-25 controllers is in the initialization of the controllers.
I'm using a BS1 microcontrollers to turn on a relay that powers up the HB25's and initializes them.

While I'm not using an RC transmitter/receiver, I believe it would work.
Check the documentation again concerning initialization, I'm thinking you will need to add an initialization circuit
before you can use your RC controller.

I hope this helps you in some manner.

erco

Sure you could use a micro to delay your hb25 startup/initialization. Or an RC delay circuit, or just switch it on manually.

jolau

As I understand from the documentation the signal pin as to set to ground in the first 2 seconds (or 50ms for older versions). I guess the easiest way is to add a switch between the signal pin and ground (perhaps insert also an 4.7 kΩ resistor between ground and the signal pin). Does someone have a better idea? Perhaps a more automatic solution...?

kwinn

A 555 timer would work well for that.

LoopyByteloose

A 7555 timer would be even better... extremely low power. Two in series could easily generate a 2 second delay

http://www.intersil.com/content/dam/Intersil/documents/icm7/icm7555-56.pdf

I believe the 2 in one package is the 7556. But one alone just might do the trick.

http://www.edaboard.com/thread204896.html

jolau

I talked with a guy from the tech support. He said that it will work with a standard R/C receiver. The receiver has just to be powered on before the HB-25. So I will buy it and try it out. Thanks for your help!